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But in telegraph dots and dashes aren't the short and long pulses we have in radio. They were just marks left on paper tape by a stylus attached to an electromagnet. The armature made noises and adept operators could translate by ear. So how did they get so adept? Leaning code was hard. The adoption of Morse code was slowed by the time it took to learn. It was invented decades before recordings were commonly available. Training consisted of charts and hands-on experience. This didn't change for about 40 years.
Learning Morse stayed the same until World War I. It was then that the U.S. military started really using the telegraph to send messages. It wasn't just for the convenience, speed of communication was a strategically sound motive. This meant that they needed a lot more wireless telegraph operators. It was wartime so this need was very urgent. They needed them on land, sea and eventually air.
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The Victor disc was in print in WWII but was never re-pressed onto vinyl. That made the AMECO code course the predominant method for the last 5 decades. It's been continually in print and modernized for different formats. It's now even available as a software program. But it was never the only course, Columbia records did their own as did Folkways, and a dozen other smaller companies.
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